AUTHOR=Tunster Simon J. , Boqué-Sastre Raquel , McNamara Gráinne I. , Hunter Susan M. , Creeth Hugo D. J. , John Rosalind M. TITLE=Peg3 Deficiency Results in Sexually Dimorphic Losses and Gains in the Normal Repertoire of Placental Hormones JOURNAL=Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology VOLUME=6 YEAR=2018 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cell-and-developmental-biology/articles/10.3389/fcell.2018.00123 DOI=10.3389/fcell.2018.00123 ISSN=2296-634X ABSTRACT=
Hormones from the fetally derived placenta signal to the mother throughout pregnancy to ensure optimal fetal growth and prepare the mother for her new role in nurturing her offspring. Through evolution, placental hormones have under gone remarkable diversification and species-specific expansions thought to be due to constant rebalancing of resource allocation between mother and offspring. Genomic imprinting, an epigenetic process in which parental germlines silence genes in the offspring, is thought to be the physical embodiment of a second conflicting interest, between the male and female mammal. Several genes silenced by paternal imprints normally function to limit the placental endocrine lineages of the mouse placenta. We hypothesized that paternal imprinting has adapted to overcome the rapid evolution of placental hormone gene families by directly regulating the lineages that express these hormones rather than individual hormones. This predicts the existence of genes maternally silenced in the offspring counteracting the influence of the paternal imprint. Here we report on the consequences of loss of function of